Wednesday, May 23, 2012

We then got the correct movement system happening and put in all 27
building types to see how well they assembled, which looked like this:

This really got us excited, since we started to see a glimpse of what
towns will eventually be like! But then we got to this stage:

With textures starting to be applied, things started looking really
quite cool, but still REALLY basic as there were still limited models
and no lighting yet.
So, just to let you know where we're up to (and to show we haven't
been lazy!) we have a (still early) video showing the towns with some of
the advanced lighting in place!

All of the shaders are running at default settings for now, so it
looks awful, and there are still only demo textures and no props, etc,
but take a look at the progression we've made through these few videos,
and imagine what it's going to look like in the end! Yay!
Also, our KickStarter is at $4200! That's 70% of our goal! And we still have something like 17 days left to go! So please, please, PLEASE keep sharing the link! Post it on forums, share it on FaceBook and Twitter! Let everyone know! You're doing awesome so far, so keep it going!
We've put up a heap of new reward levels, including one where YOU CAN
STAR IN THE GAME!!! So be sure to keep checking back on it! Just click
the image below!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

First off, I want to do a GIANT thank you shout out to everyone who's helped out on the KickStarter page! It's only been one week and we've already surpassed HALF of our total goal! Thank you all so much!

So we've been working on towns a bit lately, and I thought I'd show you where we're at with that! If you follow us on Facebook you'll have already seen this image, but we've got some really cool town buildings thanks to our friends over at Arteria3D, which we've re-worked a bit for the game, and they assemble quite well into very fun-looking towns to explore!

They're looking absolutely amazing and they're really quite fun to explore! I've done up a very rough video showing them off a little bit. It's quite cool to wander around the towns, even if they're not yet textured or lit properly!

If you listen closely in that video you can also hear some of the incredible music that our composer Nicolas Lee has been writing for the towns! We love it!

Anyway, don't forget to share our KickStarter link around and go over to visit it. We've put up a few cool updates since we last mentioned it on here!

Friday, May 11, 2012

So we've been quiet for a while, but we're back, and we have quite a selection of things for show and tell!
First of all, we've gotten some new artists on board, and have a few
others on the side waiting to go when the time is right. First up,
Rachel's back! You may remember Rachel's work in the character
portraits, shop artwork and pretty much most of the architectural
concept work from very early on in the game's development.

Rachel has been hard at work doing all of the new weapon art that
you've been seeing, but has also recently been creating dozens of new
sets of armour for the game, which are look SPECTACULAR. But I'll be
doing up a separate blog post about that.

Secondly we would like to welcome Carrie Oglesby to the project.
Carrie is a wonderfully talented young woman who has been creating some
fantastic loading screens for us lately, but will soon be moving onto
some really cool new stuff which we'll have to show off when she's done.
For now, here's a personal piece of hers to show you just how awesome
she is:

We feel very lucky to have her on board for the project, and can't wait to see some of the things she comes up with!

And lastly, we welcome on board Angus Olsen, who we met down in
Sydney while we were presenting at the GAME convention. He was kind
enough to come and visit us in person with voice actor David Doyle and
help us pitch the game to the public. We've been very eager to have him
involved as he has the distinct honor of having DISNEY on his resume.
Not many artists can say that!
Angus is doing some character design work for us, and it's coming along
fantastically. It's currently in rough sketch form for now, as the
specific details are ironed out, but ALREADY it's looking incredible!

We'll be sure to show off some of the finals when they're ready to
go! We really are honored to have someone of Angus' level involved with
the art team!
Waiting in the wings we also have three other artists who will be
revealed soon. They are quite high profile and do INCREDIBLE work. They
will be doing some promotion-specific art for the game, including
box-art and matte paintings for posters and banners, so we'll keep you
posted on that when it happens! We're very excited!

On top of all that, our composer, Nicolas Lee,
has been hard at work making some STUNNING music for the towns and
buildings (which you'll get to see in some gameplay videos over the
coming weeks) and you can get an early sneak peek of the tracks in this
awesome showreel that he's put together for the project's musical score!
Check it out!

Now, something a bit serious, I'm afraid...
One thing I didn't particularly want to have to bring up publicly is a
bit of a trolling problem we seem to be having of late. One past team
member - who will remain nameless - had to be removed from the project,
and a large group of their friends seems to have taken it upon
themselves to try and spam the project wherever possible. I have no
desire to name names, point fingers or any of that, as that's not what
I'm about - disagreements and conflicts of interest just happen - but in
case some of the sometimes awful, hateful troll messages do slip
through the filter that we try very hard to maintain, please accept my
apologies. As I said, I didn't particularly want to make mention of it
and have tried my best to keep quiet since it happened, but the trolling
gets quite bad sometimes and you all should know that we're doing our
best to keep it quiet and to recognize it when you see it.

But on to happier news. We've been working quite hard on putting
oceans into the game. BIG oceans. They are quite imposing when you find
the coasts. Sometimes large, sheer cliffs just loom out of no-where and
drop into the rolling sea. It's quite a sight to behold but it IS quite
buggy. We had no idea that the math of creating these things in 3D would
get quite so complicated.
Regardless, here is a quick video showing the player wandering along a
coastline. So that you can see it better, all of the foliage, debris,
etc has been stripped away so it's just the raw terrain data and the
ocean itself. Sorry it's a bit dark, it was night in the game when we
recorded!

So they're coming along. As I said, they're still QUITE buggy, but
they're getting there. Aside from some personal life nonsense, the maths
behind these has been the main reason it's been so long between blog
posts! However, we've decided to take a little bit of a break from these
and move on to towns, so that you can all see the amazing plans we have
for them, especially since we now have access to the incredible 3D
assets from the generosity of Arteria3D!
If you're a game maker, please check them out! They're great guys!

So we'll have more about the towns soon, too! But believe it or not, there's even MORE news!
Firstly, a big thank you to The Penny Arcade Report, which featured
our Kevin Bacon article on their site yesterday. The blog got so much
traffic from it that it actually crashed! Lots of fun and games... But
it's awesome! Every little thing like that is a real plus for the
traffic of the game! We've also had three separate stories run over at
Gamasutra! We were also interviewed recently by Alistair Doulin of Bane Games, and the interview went up yesterday if you'd like to have a read of it.
Alistair is actually a good friend of ours and is the creator of the game BATTLE GROUP! Definitely worth checking out.

But the biggest news of all is that we're trying our hand at
crowdsourcing again! Remember how we had a shot at it on IndieGoGo but
just couldn't get the traffic? Well, we're trying again, this time using
KickStarter! We know a lot of you wanted us to go with them in the
first place, but we couldn't due to being based in Australia. However,
we now have an American wing based out of Seattle thanks to Nicolas Lee,
and are running the campaign through that! So please, head on over,
check it out, and even if you can't contribute, share the link as MUCH
AS POSSIBLE. The more eyes that see it, the more chance we have of
reaching our goal! We've also got some new perks for you, and you can
use it to PRE-ORDER THE GAME!
One special thing you'll notice... There is a limited offer, $1000
pledge (only 5 available) that will receive a prototype copy of the
official Malevolence Card Game that won't be out until the end of 2013!
So jump on board! Get involved! And Share the link like it's a flu virus
and you feel a sneeze coming on!

Also don't forget to check us out on all of the social networks below. See you again soon with more cool stuff!